This is a quote from Wikipedia: Francis Collins describes theistic evolution as the position that "evolution is real, but that it was set in motion by God and characterizes it as accepting “that evolution occurred as biologists describe it, but under the direction of God”. It is this last part which distinguishes it from evolution taught in science classes which has nothing guiding it. Is this not what you mean in which case we actually both agree?
I’m very well aware that many Christians take a non-literal view of Genesis, and that many accept evolution while rejecting the anti-science views of creationists. What confuses me is when these Christians (who say they accept evolution) also make claims that to me at least seem inconsistent with science. An example is the Doctrine of Original Sin (which I realize you reject). I think I should actually create a new post with the title “Are the doctrines of Original Sin / The Fall consistent with Evolution?” which is really what I wanted to debate
But even the views of Christians such as yourself who reject any literal interpretation of Genesis confuse me, because it implies that god through evolution, set us up to fail and then he judges us deserving of punishment when we do (see Was there death before the Fall? - #57 by Anthony)
Thanks for pointing that out. I meant some Christians who say they accept evolution still make claims that are inconsistent with evolution e.g. the doctrines of Original Sin and The Fall
So you’re saying that there was an alteration of the relationship between god and humans and that this is the reason why there is so much suffering and evil in this world? Can you expand on this? In particular:
How are humans different before and after this change?
What caused this alteration in the relationship?
What about humans who had no interaction with Adam & Eve or their descendants until modern times? For example, the Sentinelese are an tribe who have been living on one of the Andaman Islands for at least the last 55000 years and have virtually no contact with the rest of the world. How were they affected by this change in relationship you speak of? Or was this relationship always broken?
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
71
Evolutionary creationists believe that God is guiding evolution in the same way that God is guiding gravity or meteorology or energy conservation laws. That is … we don’t take issue with those explanations of things or insist that magnetism, for example, is Godless because no theories of it refer to God’s involvement.
So the moniker “Theistic…” is really just a reactionary corrective to the insistence of some evolutionary scientists that evolution (seemingly alone among all the sciences I guess) must preclude any existence of intention or purpose by any supervising Deity. No science or math or logic is (or can be) offered up as to why this must be so - it’s just the bare and unsupported religious assertion that God and evolution cannot both be real. Because of that unfortunate history, many Christian thinkers and scientists have noted that science shows nothing of the sort. The reality of God is quite established (or not!) on entirely other grounds. Evolutionary science has no more to say about that than magnetism or gravity or relativity does. You can bet that if a historical movement had arisen insisting that magnetism is and must be atheistic, then today there would probably be a movement labeled “theistic magnetists” who insist that one can fully accept theories of magnetism and still believe that God oversees it all.
So your quest to find how “theistic evolution” is different than so-called “unguided” (which is code-lingo by some for godless) evolution can never bear any better fruit than a quest to find out how Christian meteorology differs from ordinary meteorology. The descriptor “theistic” is simply an acknowledgment that, contrary to the materialist assumption, Christians can engage with the fully robust scientific findings just as well as anybody else - and they can do so completely within robustly biblical Christianity.
I can honestly say I am not sure. I could offer some guesses (somehow you connect with a piece of God and end up with a charitable heart, selflessness, a loving faith and other fruits of the spirit) but in the end salvation is God’s business. I don’t think all other faiths are wrong in the sense that you can’t come to God in them or even find many divine truths buried in another system of names and beliefs. I think God is real and belief in the Transcendent is natural. God is bigger than the boxes we put him in. One thing the Gospel of Thomas got right: Jesus said: “Split wood, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me there.”
In Christianity, we believe we received direct revelation and God incarnated himself. This doesn’t mean to me that other people in different cultures and contexts can’t find God in different places. But I don’t think the mutually exclusive truth claims of all religions are true. The law of non-contradiction holds. But finding God and glimpsing the divine where you can is more important than correct doctrine. But if you can do both…
I don’t think everyone who has ever merely heard the name Jesus is now without excuse and automatically damned if they didn’t turn into a modern, conservative Protestant. I have quite a few friends who believe this. Very nice people but I still consider them “thumpers.” I don’t believe people who have heard of Jesus are necessarily rejecting the real transforming and risen Jesus but a caricature of it. They are rejecting a story about Jesus with a lot of problematic baggage, some of which stems from His followers failing to be a good witness, morally and intellectually. The real Jesus they haven’t met yet. I could never see the majority of the world rejecting Him.
Suggesting there is no need to evangelize if anyone can go to heaven is like saying there is no reason to offer food or help to a poor person that is going to heaven. Even if temporary, that pain is still very much real. That type of attitude does not follow the teachings of Jesus or Christian ideas. As Christians we are supposed to be filled with the Spirit and imitating Christ. I belief James tells us plainly if we don’t help people in need and show compassion we aren’t saved. To whom much is given, much is expected. The point of life isn’t just to get to heaven. We are supposed to love, grow and learn. Our focus needs to be on the here and now.
I could also ask the same type of question to you as an atheist. If any suffering is really only for a blink of an eye on cosmic scales (80 years is close to nothing) and non-existence continues for eternity, then what does it really matter if we care about or help our fellow humans? In a million or billion years when all humanity is probably gone and there is zero trace we ever existed, what did anything ultimately matter? Follow morality and reciprocal altruism as dictated by “blind” evolution which claims some mere collections of atoms and molecules have intrinsic value and inalienable rights? Do you find these sort of caricaturing questions to actually present any challenge to your sense of morality and purpose?
The life and teachings of Jesus have immense value on their own. For most of us God is love and we see the absolute best demonstration of that love in the person of Jesus. God lowers himself, experiences what we experience and humbly allows Jesus to be victimized and suffer a torturous death on the Cross. Jesus is about bridging an infinite ontological gap. Giving us a proper image of God and creating solidarity. A Roman cross seems like the absolute last place in the universe we would expect to find God. A porn studio would seem more likely on a prima facie level but that is part of the beauty of the Cross.
A book written by a former fundamentalist who struggled through the maze that I recently read said, “Jesus came to offer more than just salvation from hell.” And “Just because I think God will be merciful when he judges doesn’t mean I think the Gospel is pointless. I believe the Gospel of the most important thing in the world! It should be shared no matter what.” Rachel Evans, Evolving in Monkey Town
Not only that but the majority of Christians feel that God commissioned us to spread the good News about Jesus. Jesus is so much more than “a get out of jail free card.” The Gospel means good news. God loves us. He wants to saves us from ourselves.
You like the tough questions. Sure, if aborted babies axiomatically to heaven then maybe it’s not so bad. But should we just abort them all and end the human race?
But since I don’t think damnation is axiomatic for “non Christians” I also don’t think salvation is axiomatic for anyone, including babies. I think there is probably more at some point before heaven or hell. A Catholic purgatory type place. I also think “salvation” itself is a process. We could have just been born in heaven. But instead we have earth. God wants people alive, to reproduce, to make free choices and to establish a genuine relationship with him. Terminating a baby’s life is contrary to God’s will. By this logic, whether a baby or even a small child, we could reasonably kill our children and send them to heaven. I can assure you that murdering your baby or child is not a good thing. The
It’s about the sanctity of life. All life, not just babies. I see far too many Christians who think being “pro-life” only extends to babies and abortion. To be pro-life is to care about unborn babies but also abused children, mistreated spouses, the poor, the destitute, the marginalized, drug addict, prisoners and even the rich person feeling empty inside. For a Christian to be “pro-life” is supposed to mean so much more since we believe all people bare the imago Dei.
There are pagans who call them selfies theists and use the term theistic evolution.
This will be the last time and if you don’t get it you don’t get it.
Theistic evolution is used by many people. Many people use the term and it has nothing to do with god guided. Inise the term theistic evolution. I don’t think God guided anything with evolution and that humans are here purely by chance.
So you can read a few lines in and see that this term is used by many in the same way as myself. N
Aaahhh okay…I see your point. My previous comments weren’t quite right, but I don’t think yours were either. If a theory makes a positive claim about a natural process being directed (as with theistic evolution) or not directed towards a specific goal (as with atheistic evolution), then it must provide evidence thereof. Neither position has been validated by science.
The scientific theory of evolution however makes no claims about it being directed towards any goal. This of course doesn’t mean it isn’t. Maybe in future such evidence will be forthcoming and the theory might need to be revised.
So there are really 3 positions: theistic evolution, atheistic evolution and the Theory of Evolution.
Please see my comment to Mervin who had a similar objection
You’re one of the “evolutionary creationists" referred to in the article. So you’re in the 3rd category I listed i.e. you just believe in the Theory of Evolution and reject the other two positions? For what its worth, I also reject atheistic evolution because there is no evidence that evolution is goal-less (although I suspect it is).
The theist part can mean multiple things. The evolution part can mean multiple things.
You find people who use the term “theistic evolution” to refer to a sort of subcategory of intelligent design where God interferes with nature and guides comets that hit earth and whatever else they decide and you have people using the term “theistic evolution” to refer to a coined word to make to statements I believe in a higher power and I believe in evolution and within this group you’ll find Jews, Muslims and Christians and within the christians you’ll find people using the term being used by people who don’t believe that God
Has guided anything about the process of evolution.
Now you can go into the streets and ask tons of people if they believe in god and you’ll routinely hear people say , “ no I don’t believe in God I believe in evolution”’or “ no I believe in science”’where evolution is preloaded with the concept of atheism and evolution. When you bring up the subject with a wide range and probably the majority of American Christians and you state and talk a few minutes about why you believe in theistic evolution they say ,” oh so you don’t really believe in God or believe in the Bible and ect…”
To say you believe in evolution to a large section of people in the world is synonymous with atheism. That’s why you don’t see atheists saying I believe in atheistic evolution because evolution is already commonly held to promote atheism. So when I say I believe in or I am a “ evolutionary creationist, evolutionary creationism, theistic evolutionists, theistic evolution, ) it means one thing. I am a theist and I believe in evolution. No matter what you say it’s problematic because there is no clear cut terminology snd even if you say “ I am a Christian who believes in evolution” you still have atheists and Christians thinking it means either it’s pseudoscience or that you’re denying God or that you think the Bible is useless and ect…. If I was the only person within this community or the planet that was using the terms that way I would change it. But I’m not.
I also think evolution is goal less because it has no direction. It’s not a being or a worldview. It’s the byproduct of chance. It’s by chance a series of tetrapods ended up lizards, snakes and primates .
Sure you can talk about various mutations being activated. The science is not 100% clear on all of it. But what the science is clear about is that a tetrapod from millions of years ago did not say hey I want my descendants to be mostly hairless bipedal chimps and there was no fish that said hey you know I need to start manipulating my genes to produce mutations that allow me to walk. As a proponent of free will I also don’t believe God caused some squirrel looking human ancestor to take a mate and travel from the coasts to higher ground to avoid being killed by tidal waves potentially caused by asteroids and then made sure each of their offspring and their offsprings offspring had at least one kid that survived to ensure we evolved down the road.
I just don’t believe evolution means there is no God or that Jesus is fake.
That’s because neither theory is a scientific proposition. You keep wanting to bring all these things into the scientific court for adjudication there. And that is appropriate if it is mere biological evolution in question. But the theisms (or a-theisms) that may be held by any persons studying science are not themselves scientific claims - or I should say that most of us here are not attempting to advance them as such.
Exactly right.
It would indeed be a bizarre revision if such a thing could be done. That is what IDists are hoping to provide. But most of us here don’t think that science, within the use of its historically effective tools, could hope to weigh in on such things. And if it did - it almost certainly wouldn’t be the classically Christian ground of all being (God) that was contained within the microscope’s lens or the mathematical model.
Huh? Where? Where did I say anything of that sort? Didn’t say it. Don’t think it either. The relationship with God is important for different reasons. I oppose the notion that belief in God is any kind of panacea for human problems, or that it is even universally beneficial to all people (pointing out that a belief in God can even be a part of a psychopathology in some people). And I certainly do not credit the idea that no religious relationship with God must result in evil.
So let that question in your comment be the first you should have asked – two separate questions though. Then I will alter your other questions to something relevant to what I said and actually believe – adding a couple more for good measure.
Why is there suffering in the world?
We know for a fact from evolution that suffering is a necessary and unavoidable part of life itself. There would be no life or the development of life without suffering. Life is not some woo woo magical stuff added to things in order to animate them. Life is a process of self-organization responding to stimulation from the environment (pretty much because it is experienced as suffering to be avoided or alleviated).
Why is there evil in the world?
The short answer is self-destructive habits. By bringing the human mind to life God gave us far more power in the world than any other creature. That includes the power of imagination which can indulge in all kinds of perversities contrary to the nature of life itself. We are far from isolated existences and self-destructive behavior inevitably brings destruction to others as well.
What were the changes in the homo sapiens to human because of this communication from God?
It was the beginning of human civilization as they used their new found imagination to live in vastly different ways than homo sapiens have lived for millions of years previously.
What were the changes in the homo sapiens to human because of the self-destructive habits from Adam and Eve?
That story is told in the Bible: the description “evil continuously” means life in this earliest human civilization would best be described as hell on earth. Thank God it was wiped out by a flood before it spread over the earth. Much from Adam and Eve did spread over the earth but without a unified culture and civilization the necessity of competition with each other naturally limited the depravity which they could sink to and expect to survive.
I do not credit the claim that the Sentinelese have had no contact with others for 55000 years, but that is no reason to avoid the question: What would happen with a group of homo sapiens who had no communication with God and no interaction with others experiencing this alteration starting with Adam and Eve?
The way of life of our ancestors experienced very little change for over a million years, and without any contact with others, I would expect there to be very little change over a mere 55,000 years added to that.
Did something happen to man’s relationship with God because of Adam and Eve?
Yes, both good and bad. God adopted Adam and Eve as His children, which means this was the beginning of a relationship with God via human communication where God could teach them new ideas. But the bad habit of blaming others for their mistakes transformed God from their greatest teacher to the greatest scapegoat, and thus for their own good it was necessary for God to terminate such a close relationship and largely remove Himself from their life. They had to learn that they simply couldn’t survive without taking responsibility for their own life.
Are the religious aspects of the above explanation measurable or demonstrable in any way?
No. There are certainly no ways to identify where ideas may have come from. Did people just think them up for themselves and only imagine that a god gave such ideas to them? There is no way to prove this one way or another. The things of religion are completely subjective. But those who imagine that they can live life in a completely objective way are delusional. It is not possible.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
85
It doesn’t need to be. Mere rationality is sufficient; sufficient to say that science will never find what isn’t there. Only desire, longing, yearning is greater than rationality.
